Mexico City Grand Prix organisers are confident their Formula One race will remain a sell-out success even if hugely popular local hero Sergio Perez is no longer competing.
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Perez, 34, is Mexico's most successful Formula One driver but by his own admission has had a 'terrible season' with Red Bull in danger of losing their constructors' crown largely due to his lack of form.
While championship-leading teammate Max Verstappen has scored 354 points, Perez's tally from the same 19 races has been a mere 150 and there is increasing speculation he could be out at the end of the season.
The Mexican round, which returned to the calendar in 2015, has had capacity crowds for all nine editions to date.
"The Mexican crowd, the fandom in Mexico, is very strong for Formula One in general, and obviously Checo (Perez) is a great enhancement for this," Mexico City Grand Prix president Alejandro Soberon told reporters on Saturday.
"But Mexico had been very, very close in their heart to Formula One, so we have a much better show on track today (compared to) what we had five years ago.
"I think competition and quality of the spectacle in the track is going to be enough to sustain the interest in the crowd."
Soberon said it was also not a given that Perez's career was about to end.
He pointed out that the driver lasted only 90 seconds of last year's race after a first corner collision but tickets for this year's grand prix still sold out in two hours when they went on sale 15 days later.
Soberon said demand was such that organisers could have sold 200 000 more tickets than the 400 000 capacity – meaning that even a 20 per cent drop in people applying would still result in a sell-out – and expected next year also to be sold out.
RIGHT MARKETING
The circuit is named after the Rodriguez brothers, Pedro and Ricardo, who both raced for Ferrari in the 1960s.
"It's all about the right marketing. If we eventually don't have Checo, we're going to make the country cheer for someone else," added Soberon, who pointed out that Mexico had historically been a "Ferrari nation" before Perez.
"We need to talk about which team would be the right team for us to follow."
Soberon said Brazil had no regular race driver but the crowd had adopted seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton, an honourary Brazilian, as their local hero.
"This is about heroes in competition, sporting events about heroes," he explained.
"Of course, we need to have a hero on the track. It's much better to have a local hero, but in case you don't have it, we're going to find the right hero to follow. And he's going to be surprised feeling that he's at home in Mexico."
Mexico's Formula One contract expires after next year's race but Soberon was optimistic it would be extended "for many, many years".